by Sophia Karakeva, Chief Communications Officer at DataScouting

I met Yafit Lazar, Content and Communications Manager at Webz.io, at the 2022 FIBEP World Media Intelligence Congress that was held in Dublin, Ireland, 14-16 September. Webz.io was a sponsor and exhibitor at the event. We had the opportunity to talk about FIBEP and the media intelligence industry and shortly after the WMI Congress we did this interview, which is available on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the Webz Insider.

These are some of the highlights of my interview with Yafit.

FIBEP and the role of technology

FIBEP was founded in 1953 and today it is the world’s media intelligence association with a focus on communications insight and technology. Database tech and cloud tech are now the baseline for every media monitoring company. Tech is both a necessity and a growth stimulant: necessity because the media landscape grows exponentially, and a growth stimulant because tech can drill into new use cases and new markets.

Technology has already become a core business function within organizations. Not to mention that according to the ICCO World PR Report for 2020-2021, investment in IT and technology is expected to grow over the next five years. This is an incredible opportunity and that is one of the reasons why technology is one of the basic pillars of FIBEP.

The major challenge that the media intelligence industry is facing now is the rapid digitalization and technologization of the industry. Technological topics such as speech to text conversion, logo detection, text mining and artificial intelligence are moving more and more into focus and changing the industries working methods, processes and competencies rapidly.

The biggest technological challenges of media intelligence companies

When it comes to technological challenges, these are the four challenges that perfectly apply on the media intelligence industry: internationalization, personalization, digitalization and platformisation. Distribution has become so diverse and fragmented that is difficult to control it. Consumption has shifted to mobile and diverse platforms, members are moving into new business models with personalized and subscription services, while in the meantime, we have new and more media platforms coming to the field that we need to keep an eye on (for example gaming platforms, Discord or Twitch).

Additionally, the growing importance of interfaces (Google TV is revolutionizing the TV experience, connected cars) and immersive digital experiences (like the Metaverse) are elements that are affecting technology.

And then we have Web3.0 mirroring the blockchain revolution. Change is coming and it is coming fast. Web 3.0 is about decentralizing the web, meaning data ownership will no longer be confined to centralized institutions but it will be consumers who will own and control their personal data. On the one hand this means that brands will have to take steps and leverage new technology to create direct, long-term relationships with their consumers and offer value in exchange for data. But on the other hand, does this mean that data marketplaces will soon become obsolete? We will have to wait and see.

Media intelligence companies and data collection challenges

Media intelligence companies, depending on their size, have different problems. But some of them are the same across the industry. One such problem is how they will embrace AI and how they and will keep up with new technologies. We all know that AI is creating efficiencies but it also creates challenges. And quite often what the client perceives that AI can do and what it actually does are two different things. So, the answer to this would be to find a software technology partner, create a solid partnership and work together towards the media monitoring company’s vision. The second problem is to find the right partner for the provision of data. Data is of paramount importance because with valuable data in hand, media intelligence prepares you with insight into what is happening right now but it also allows you to see future trends and thus forecast business strategies.

The role of web data providers in the media intelligence ecosystem

Media intelligence is the process of collecting and processing extended amounts of data and information generated by multiple media channels in order to gain strategic insights into business performance. So, data collection technology is very important to translate unstructured data into structured machine ready feeds. And of course, you need to make sure you stay compliant with a full range of regulations.

Web data has become multi-faceted and its volume continues to grow. At the same time technology has advanced and has transformed the process of collection, storage and analysis of data. And this is all good, but the bottom line, data needs to be reliable and the collection process needs to be transparent. Content has exploded but we need to provide the end clients only data they need – it can be raw data or not, which in that case you need to enrich that data with coding. Because in the end you can have lots of data but poor insights. So, you need to have a provider / tool that will give you the intelligence you need, and expect.